Julie Beugin “Blaue Stunde” 2011 oil on canvas 200 x 270 cm
November 18,2011 – January 14, 2012
Opening: Friday, November 18, 7-10 pm
Paul Petro Contemporary Art
980 Queen St West
Toronto, ON M6J 1H1
Tel: 416-979-7874
info@paulpetro.com
www.paulpetro.com
Hours: Wed – Sat: 11–5
Paul Petro Contemporary art is pleased to present new paintings and ceramics by Toronto-based artist Amy Bowles and a body of new paintings, produced over the last year in Berlin, by Montreal-based artist Julie Beugin. Both artists will be present at the opening.
“Blaue Stunde, or ‘Blue Hour,’ is a German phrase describing the time between night and day, the period of transition where the sky is a bright blue before the darkness of night. In the city it is the time when interior lights are turned on but before curtains are drawn. Artificial lights mingle with the glow of the sky and inside and outside appear equally lit. The city feels permeable, the everyday strange. This in between light forms the leitmotif for the exhibition.
In my paintings, perfectly angled tables and shelving units meet city streets and institutional architecture. The carefully domesticated vegetation of gardens and potted plants are lit with electric lights, the natural indivisible from the manufactured. Transparently painted and holding inside and outside simultaneously, these composite spaces suggest mental images; desires of the recent past rendered unstable in the face of contemporary anxieties. Emerging within and around the photographic references are forms that dissolve into pools and puddles and are more paint than image: the edges of memory, a word on the tip of the tongue. The strangeness of the built world, lightly held together.” Julie Beugin, July 2011
Amy Bowles is an artist, musician and actress. Born in London, UK, she graduated from the Cardiff Institute of Art and Design (1993-96) with a BA in Ceramic Design and moved to Canada in 1999. Since then she has been showing paintings, sculptures and film. Bowles is the lead vocalist for the Toronto bands Pony da Look and Permafrown. As an actress she has primarily worked with Toronto director and playwright Alex Wolfson, most recently in “And so, the animal looked back…” presented at the Art Gallery of York University (Toronto), January 28 – March 14, 2010.